Haulout - Floating Platform for Injured Seal Pups

description

Haulout is an inexpensive, easy to make, use, and clean system to aid in seal recoveryat the Vancouver Aquarium’s Marine Mammal Rescue Centre as well as other aquaticmammal rehabilitation centres. It is made almost entirely of recycled materials that cancontinue to be recycled when it is time to replace them.The haul is made up of machine cut pieces of HDPE plastic that can be assembled into afl oating platform which can be expanded for larger seals. The seals can use this platformto rest out of the water as well as warm up. This is an activity that seals often do in the wildthat is diffi cult to facilitate in quarantine tanks such as those at the MMR. By giving the sealpups a place to haul out while in quarantine, we can help them learn to swim and getstronger at an earlier age.As the seal pups grow, the haul can be expanded to accommodate their larger size andbe added to larger tanks while giving the seals a deeper pool to swim in. The hauls canfl oat freely or be attached to the tanks with special suction cup hooks, or with rope.